Ringing in 2019

Our Christmas vacation is winding down with the kids headed back to school tomorrow. It has felt like we’ve been on vacation forever, and also feels like it flew by at the same time! I confess – it’s been a super lazy and relaxing vacation with lots of sleeping in, lounging in pjs, and snacking on junk food. It’s been great, but I’m really ready to get back in a routine and get back to healthier habits!

Today I wanted to share a peek at how we rung in the new year! As I talked about in my last blog post, we aren’t really into going out to celebrate NYE and wanted to have a quiet celebration at home with the kids this year! We had a pajama party/game night complete with yummy snacks and a fancy drink bar. We set up a little photo booth area with this backdrop and also grabbed some props and hats at a local shop. We used the Pocketbooth app on my phone to create the photo booth photos.

We loaded up on glow sticks and the kids decked themselves out with them! I grabbed ours at the local dollar store. We also filled up about 30 balloons and the kids had a blast playing with them!

We also lit some sparklers outside! This was the best photo I could get – it’s super hard to get long exposures of kids who don’t hold still!

I found this printable online and grabbed the plastic flutes, plates, cups, wooden silverware, and noisemakers at a local shop. I grabbed the rock candy at a local candy shop as well (you can also find it online).

The full drink bar! I made crockpot hot cocoa and had an assortment of toppings.

We also made s’mores! This handy little s’mores maker was a hit and is perfect for cold winter nights.

And we capped off our evening with some sparkling cider with rock candy!

We actually made it until midnight, and we watched the giant potato drop here in Boise while popping party poppers and blowing on noisemakers. It was the perfect, low-key celebration with my little family!

As far as New Year’s resolutions…I’m not a big believer in them and don’t typically do them. That said, I do want to continue to improve on personal goals of mine/get back on track with healthy habits. My top 3 goals for the year are:

I want to commit to unplugging every evening for at least 2 hours to just focus on my kids. It’s so easy to get caught up with checking/responding to emails, scrolling social media, reading news articles, turning on the TV (not to mention all the household chores!) – and before I realize it, hours have passed! My kids are growing up so quickly and I really want to make sure to be more intentional about spending focused time with them everyday.

Get back to running regularly! I had a little health set back in November and completely fell off the running wagon. After I got feeling better, I had a hard time getting motivated again with the cold weather and feeling so overwhelmed with holiday activities. I want to get back to running a minimum of 4 days a week.

Get back to tracking my food. I did keto for nearly a year, and while I think it is a fantastic diet, its not something I personally wanted to stay on forever. But it was a great kickstart to dropping some weight and getting into healthier eating habits. My sugar intake has dropped dramatically & I often find things to be way too sweet now! One thing that also worked well for me is intermittent fasting & tracking what I eat. I do want to continue with a low carb diet (not as restrictive as keto), and be stricter with intermittent fasting and really being mindful of what I’m eating. I’ve been completely off the wagon over the holiday season, and definitely want to ditch the holiday pounds and get back on track!

As with any year there were some ups and downs in 2018. We moved into a new house (moving is always super stressful!) but we are thrilled with our new home and our new location. Cole started a new school, which was a huge change and also a bit stressful – but he has completely adapted and is much, much happier at his new school than he was at his last one! He had a pretty terrible experience at his school last year, and a big part of our decision to move was to get our kids into a really good school district this fall. It was a challenging & stressful experience for our family dealing with a pretty awful school situation, but we are now so thrilled that we took the leap as it clearly turned out to be the right decision and we couldn’t be happier. Evan also started pre-school, and it has been so wonderful for him in so many ways. We traveled to Hawaii for ten days and also spent a really fun week with Jon’s family this summer. I’ve been volunteering at the kid’s schools regularly which has been so wonderful. I’m thankful for all the memories made this past year, and am looking forward to what 2019 has in store!